Sculpture News

2011 is the inaugural year of the IMPACT Social Entrepreneurship Awards program, one of the anchor initiatives of CCA's Center for Art and Public Life. This program enables interdisciplinary teams of CCA students to develop and implement social innovations through their studies in art, architecture, design, and writing. We are pleased to announce the winning IMPACT Teams for 2011! Each team has been awarded $10,000 toward their project.

Growing up on a wildlife preserve in California surrounded by farms, homesteaders, nature writers, and the Tahoe National Forest, Maria Ryan (Sculpture 2005) spent most of her time outdoors. When she got to CCA and heard about the availability of Center Student Grants, an idea germinated, and the outcome proved life-changing. She used the grant money to spend the following summer studying plants in the Sierra Nevada and teaching a complementary course, titled "Quilting Indigenous Plant Life of the Sierra Foothills." The project combined her love for nature, handwork, and textiles, and in the end led to the production of a public artwork.

"I used an abandoned building as a community center where I held classes for local children. I hired two guest teachers: one a Maidu woman, who taught the ecological and botanical value of each indigenous plant, and the other Louis Bluecloud, a skilled Mohawk artist who gave lessons in graphic pattern design by stenciling.

"Writing the proposal and seeing this project to completion, I recognized the strength that any project acquires through collaboration. I gained priceless experience, working to engage various factions of the community and utilizing local institutions as assets in the creative process."

Last night at a celebration at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York United States Artists, a national grant-making and advocacy organization, announced the recipients of 50 USA Fellowships for 2010, totaling $2.5 million. Winners in the visual arts include faculty member Allison Smith and alumna Anna Von Mertens (MFA 2000).

Several members from CCA’s community are engaging themselves in OPENwater, a two-day event scheduled for November 13–14 that celebrates the collaboration between SFMOMA and the artists, chefs, and educators who comprise OPENrestaurant—a self-described “collective of restaurant professionals who sought to move their environment to an art space as a way to experiment with the language of their daily activities.”

In August CCA alumna Maria Ryan (BFA Sculpture 2005) started a community arts project in Africa. Maria emailed over the summer letting me know of her continued community arts practice as well as her upcoming project in Uganda. (Below is an interview with Maria Ryan (MR) and Center for Art in Public Life Design and Marketing Manager Jason Engelund (JE) conducted prior and following Maria's travels.)

Have you ever reached out to touch a painting or sculpture . . . only to receive an immediate smackdown from the museum guard? The Oakland Museum of California Sculpture Court has temporarily dispensed with the conventional museological for display only restriction to honor the artistic intent of Shawn HibmaCronan (Sculpture and Furniture 2009). In fact, the Berkeley-based artist encourages viewers to totally engage with his art—not just visually, but physically as well.

Untitled, mid-1960's: "I think mystery is more interesting than explanation, so let's leave this as a mystery." Louise Bourgeois

French-born American artist and sculptor Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010) passed away Monday at age 98. The artist first studied painting at École du Louvre, then at École des Beaux-Arts. She was an assistant to Fernand Léger, a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker, before moving to New York in 1938, where she continued displaying her work until the end of her life.

This is the first in a short series of Q&A sessions with students in CCA's First Year Program, or "first years." The sequence is aimed at familiarizing prospective CCA students with our Bay Area art-making community. Maybe you’ll imagine yourself here!

Check back for another interview next week, or (better yet!) subscribe to the RSS feed at the link below and never miss an update. As always, feel free to contact me at manthonisen@cca.edu with any questions about our admissions and enrollment processes.